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Raspberry Pi interview: Eben Upton reveals all

"What made you decide to found Raspberry Pi as a non-profit
charity, rather than as a traditional company?

"I guess the biggest factor is that it?s very hard to deal with
really huge companies like Broadcom and our RAM supplier when
you?re as small as Raspberry Pi. Typically, if you?re a small
organisation like us, you?d obtain components via a distributor
because large companies don?t want the hassle of working with you.
The problem with a distributor is a distributor comes with a
margin, and on small quantities of stuff there are really
substantial margins.

"'We?re buying ten thousand RAM chips, but ten thousand is tiny
to a big company. You can?t expect them to deal with you unless you
have some pitch, and, of course, our pitch is that we're a charity.
Nobody?s trying to make a buck. If they think we?re trying to make
a buck here, they?ll screw us. Instead, they?ll help us out by not
overcharging us for the small quantities we?re buying, so that
really helps.

"The other thing is that those of us involved in the charity,
we?ve all got other things going on: some of us are academics, and
there are people like me who?ve been academics and are now in
industry, and none of us need another start-up in our lives. None
of us need another money-making start-up, we?ve all done reasonably
well for ourselves at all the other things we?ve been doing. So,
there wasn?t ever really that incentive to try and turn it into a
money-making venture.'"